The Next Thing

I’m a Lucky Duck.

I may not be ruggedly handsome, or semi-famous, or even monetarily semi-rich but, sometimes I just feel lucky.

As some of you may already know, I write. Not for a living, not 'professionally' in that sense of the word. But I try to do it as 'professionally', in another meaning of the word, and as well as I can. And the reason I feel so lucky is because I usually have something ‘going on’ with my writing. Some kind soul may be working up a short film, some kind group of souls may be working on a play.

This makes me a Lucky Duck, in my book. So many writers have to work into a void. Will their work ever see the light of day? Who knows? With me, thanks largely to my friends, I work with a reasonable expectation that the words I type will someday make a thing that will be seen. For someone like me, who loves to write, and who lives to share my silly little stories, that’s an incredible thing. 

There is also the inevitable frisson that this luck of mine could run out at any minute. Like any of us, the next piece of writing that is seen may become the last piece of writing that is seen. It all encourages a simple typing soul like me to do their very best. The possibility of something actually being seen is a huge encouragement to make that something as good as it can possibly be.

Lucky Duck.

And now, with our short film Joey settling in very nicely on YouTube (that’s a link, if you care to click on it and see), the Next Thing raises its head excitingly above the parapet.

Last year, the inestimable Castlebar Musical and Dramatic Society asked me about the possibility of doing some of my plays in my beloved Linenhall Arts Centre for a couple of nights, to help raise some funds for their next major musical endeavour. It should go without saying that, from my point of view, the possibility of this happening was immediately very high. CMDS has a super wealth of talent in its cohort, and the chance to tap into that, to tell some of my stories, was an exciting and an intriguing one. In the heel of the hunt (whatever that means) we had a highly memorable two nights and a super-highly memorably rehearsal period beforehand. I got to do some directing, and lots of other things too, and I was singularly delighted with how the plays went over.

That was 2024.

Now it’s 2025.

And, gosh darn it, here we go again…

Earlier in the year, CMDS asked me would we consider doing another 2 nights this year, with different plays of mine. If I were being smart with you, I would say I thought about it for all of two seconds but, the truth is, I thought about it for a little while longer than that. 

You see, the first three plays had been somewhat ‘no-brainers.’ I had seen them all done, a few times in some cases, and I had some idea they could go over okay. To do it again, this year, would require the use of material that had not been produced before. Untried stuff. 

So I had to think about it a little bit harder.

But not too much harder.

To get to do theatre stuff with CMDS again? To be permitted to bring some previously unseen work to the stage?

Hell, yeah! Let’s get to it!

This year’s plays are ‘A Sort of Whodunnit?’ and ‘The Doubles Partner.’ There may be an additional piece of theatrical frippery (hence the ‘two-and-a-half plays’ thing on the poster) but we’ll get to that on the night. ‘Whodunnit’ is a comedy play that has never been seen anywhere before. It has been carefully shaped to specifically suit the cast who will play it. See apology below. ‘Doubles Partner’ has been seen a few times but the excitement of bringing back two original cast members, and adding in one of my favourite actors in the world, makes it an exciting prospect. It’s a fun play which has gone over well with audiences in the past. Here’s hoping and believing it will do so again.

As of this weekend, it all starts to feel a bit more real. The plays will be on October 16 and 17^th of this year. That’s still quite a way off and there’s a lot of work to do before we get there. But, this weekend, the shows went up for sale on The Linenhall website. Lots of empty, unclaimed, seats, which is one of the many frissons of doing theatre.

As I go on about how exciting all of this is for me, I remember that I also want to send out a word of apology to some lovely people.

Last year, we did an open audition for our plays and we got three wonderful casts out of that process. But, on my request alone, we are not doing that this year. Having watched last year’s productions, I got a very particular idea of who I would like to see in certain roles if more of my plays were ever done, and this ‘personal vision’ (if that doesn’t sound too arsey) coloured all the writing and rewriting work I have done on this year’s plays, prior to casting. So I approached the person I saw in each part and I asked them if they would like to play that part and, rather amazingly, they have all said yes. (Lucky Duck). So that’s means we won’t be doing an open audition call this year because a) there aren’t as many parts as last year and b) the people who I saw in my mind’s eye, are all up for doing it.

So this is a little apology to anyone who might have liked to come in and take part in an open audition for this year’s plays. If we ever do anything of mine again, it will probably be back to open auditions. It’s a process I greatly enjoy. But, for this year, the opportunity to ‘cast the parts as I wrote them’ was simply too good to pass up.

I’m hoping this will put an interesting colour on the performances. I wrote ‘Two for a Tenor’ for four of my acting friends with no idea if they would ever want to do it. But their constant presence in my head coloured all of the writing process and shaped each of the characters in odd little ways. Then they all turned up to do it. I’m hoping a little of that dynamic rubs off in this year’s plays too.

So, sorry and thanks, in equal measure.

And now, the work begins. There is so much to do, so much to get done. It’s scary and daunting and a little shiver-inducing. But I’m a Lucky Duck and I can’t let these life-affirming opportunities pass me by.

So, once more into the breach…

It’s going to be fun.

 

(If you’d like to come and see the plays ‘A Sort of Whodunnit?’ and ‘The Doubles Partner,’ you can book via the Linenhall website by clicking right here or you can telephone the box office, in box office hours, on 094 90 23733.)